Welcome to the "No-Thrash Zone": Embarassing Confessions About Growing Up Non-metal in Small Town America

It's been a fucking wild past couple of days--Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Karl Malden and Billy Mays are dead and Bernie Madoff will be rotting in prison for the next 150 years. Since I'm still recovering from all this shocking news and busy being lazy and Lucho and his bro are on vacation and the Sarg is busy fulfilling his fantasies of being a 16 year old scene slut I bring to you another reader contributed post, this time from Mr. Shelby Cobras. It's a touching piece that deals with the loss of innocence and finding one's metal self. I hope you enjoy!

Sergeant D is applauded by a group of sniveling yes-men at a recent Metal Inquisition Excellence In Blogging Seminar just outside of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

It is fairly obvious that the creators of Metal Inquisition are slowly falling out of touch with their hip, young readership. As Sergeant D's elderly mind slowly waddles off into territory best left unexplored and Lucho Metales spends more and more time pontificating on crates of garbage from his youth, M.I.'s so-called "fan base" is losing interest quickly. That's why I'm here. You see, I'm only 30 (a "spring chicken" by comparison) and had a completely different experience in my metal education. While the creators of Metal Inquisition grew up attending the earliest Milwaukee Metal Fests and tape-trading with dudes from Impetigo, I grew up in a small town completely devoid of any sort of metal element whatsoever (Eureka, California - an hour south of the Oregon border with a population of roughly 25,000). With all due respect to Sr. Metales, Eureka was every bit as isolated (metal-wise) from any sort of cultural center, 5 hours from San Francisco and 8 from Portland. Lucho often complains that he had to subsist on 3-year-old copies of Metal Hammer, but we couldn't get Metal Hammer AT ALL, 3 years old or otherwise. It was a lot like Footloose, except with metal instead of dancing. Eureka was a cultural wasteland, devoid of access to "underground" music (besides our own little sheltered scene) or cool places to buy T-shirts. The closest (decent) record store was 20 minutes away in Arcata, and while their "punk" selection was decent, their "metal" selection was limited to stuff like Barren Cross, Cold Lake, and Stryper. While a few death metal bands existed in the area (such as Empire of Dust, Locust Furnace, and Transi), Hessians at the time were usually big, scary, leather clad barbarians, with swastika tattoos and goats living in their kitchen (this is NOT an exaggeration). As a result, me and my friends were denied access to all but the most "mainstream" metal bands of the early 90's, causing my metal upbringing to be backwards, scattershot, and most of all, embarassing. For example, I heard Cryptopsy WAY before I ever heard Broken Hope or Morbid Saint. My first exposure to At The Gates was on the flipside of a dubbed cassette copy of Stikky's Where's My Lunchpail?. I heard Formulas Fatal To The Flesh YEARS before Blessed Are The Sick. As Mike Browning could tell you, time was moving in the WRONG DIRECTION. By the time I heard Butchered At Birth and Legion in 1995, it was already too late. So here's a list of my 5 most embarassing secrets concerning my "metal education". I'm sure that not all of you can relate to the rich metal upbringing that the senile old codgers at Metal Inquisition were fortunate enough to be exposed to. But maybe some of you guys can relate to MY embarassing past, and the sad events that served as milestones for me.


1) MY INTRODUCTION TO "METAL" WAS D.R.I.'S THRASH ZONE This is tough to admit, but Thrash Zone was the album that actually GOT ME INTO METAL. In my freshman year at Eureka High School, I was listening to some really weak shit, like Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains. So when my buddy Julian showed up one day with a copy of Zone, it seemed like a breath of fresh air. Although the songs were way too long, unbearably stupid, and featured dudes in their 30's spouting lines like "School's a job... but... you... don't get paid!", we had no frame of reference whatsoever. D.R.I. sounded like nothing we'd ever heard before. When they shouted "Like a wild Indian from outer space / Drunk and high on WEED!", it pumped our nads. Although we'd never actually been in a mosh pit, we could FEEL the intensity. Soon, me and Julian had formed our own (instrumental) "thrash" band, which we called Kill Whitey (Flesh Parade later stole the name from us). We had a Christian dude named Matt on bass, and we totally RULED. Unfortunately, Kill Whitey didn't last long, as Julian got addicted to speed and ended up stealing my baseball card collection for drug money. But I got the last laugh, because he eventually went to prison for multiple armed robberies. Oh, and I was making out with his younger sister behind his back the whole time. Sucker! Sing along with the old classic, D.R.I.'s "Thrashard", which features quite possibly the best use of fake crowd noises EVER (con sibtitulos en Espanol):

2) THE FIRST TIME I EVER HEARD ANTHRAX, IT WAS ON THAT REMAKE OF "BRING THA NOIZE" THEY DID WITH PUBLIC ENEMY Embarassing but true. I was a huge fan of P.E., beginning with the release of Apocalypse 91 back in, um, 1991. But what really blew me away was the totally innovate amalgamation of rap and metal they placed at the end of the album, a totally slammin' little ditty called "Bring Tha Noize". After doing some deep research (i.e. reading the liner notes), I found that the song was a collaboration with an awesome group of surf-trunks-wearing thrashers called Anthrax. I quickly rounded up copies of Attack of the Killer B's and Sound of White Noise, which, to my knowledge, were the only releases from these rap-metal masters. They even threw some sweet funk into the mix, which to my 13-year-old mind seemed like the best idea EVER. With 20/20 hindsight, it is fairly obvious that Public Enemy has retained their dignity better than Anthrax over the years, Flavor of Love nonwithstanding.

3) I USED TO PUT SLAYER AT THE END OF MIX TAPES... AS A JOKE I spent LOTS of time making mix tapes for my bros (and yes, chicks I had "secret" crushes on) in the early 90's. Usually chock-full of hideous garbage like Screeching Weasel, NOFX, Guttermouth, and Skankin' Pickle, these tapes were, unfortunately, a pretty accurate documentation of where my head was at the time. But the best part about making a mix tape was the extra time at the end of each side, which I liked to fill up with random sound clips and comedy bits and stuff. Usually anywhere from a couple seconds to about 2 minutes long, these leftover areas were a great place for me to flex my creative mix tape muscle, inserting samples from Adam Sandler's comedy album ("Fuck me in the goat ass!" was a popular choice) or a piece of dialogue from a cartoon I had dubbed off TV. But here's where it gets embarassing: My friend Nate, who had been a metalhead in the past but "progressed" to pop-punk, was embarassed of his old music collection and kicked me down his copy of Slayer's 1991 live album Decade of Aggression. This hurts to say, but Decade was the FIRST TIME I ever heard Slayer. Immediately confused by the excessive speed and pointless guitar solos, Slayer became my new favorite for time-consuming mix tape fodder, a ridiculously over-the-top "joke band" I could add on in 30 second increments to fuck with my friends. Unfortunately, by the time I realized that Slayer was actually pretty good (1994 or so), they had already gotten bad again. Oh well. Looking back on this, I would probably still use Slayer songs to take up extra time at the end of mix tapes, if I still made them. Except it would be jock-rock stuff like the songs on Christ Illusion or that cover they did of "Born To Be Wild". That shit is hilarious.

4) THE BLACK ALBUM WAS THE FIRST METALLICA TAPE I EVER BOUGHT AND it was the first time I'd ever even HEARD Metallica. AND I liked it. Wow, it actually feels kind of good to get that off my chest.

5) BODY COUNT SEEMED SCARY AND HARSH Keep in mind that this was before Ice T had appeared in Tank Girl (right) or smoked a joint with the Leprechaun in Leprechaun In The 'Hood. We was some backwoods, rural folks out there in Humboldt County, and "Cop Killer" seemed like the most hardcore, gangster, inner-city shit out there. Never mind Beatmaster V's inabilty to play a steady beat or Ernie C's atonal, amateur solos. Body Count was the REAL DEAL, a ghetto nightmare come to life on our very own Discman. Ice T was, without a doubt, a ruthless killer, a hardened criminal and a threat to the security of our country. And rap-metal, like I said before, seemed like a really good idea. In retrospect, it's pretty amazing that ANYONE could take the band that wrote a song like "The Winner Loses" seriously. Except Eastern Europeans, of course (PS - these two videos were the only versions of said song I could find on Youtube).

Above and below: Two crown jewels from my mid-90's Humboldt Metal collection, Drunk By Noon's I'd Call In Sick If I Had A Job cassette demo (featuring the songs "Meat Box" & "Morbid Goat") and Locust Furnace's Ignorance Through Perception. The Locust Furnace CD is actually pretty good, but take a close look at the cover art. They just cut out and blew up a chunk of the cover art from Altars of Madness. Genius.

Now that I've gotten all this shameful information off my chest, I'd like to add one more thing, something that I've never told ANYONE: Once, when I was about 10 and bedridden with a terrible fever, I crapped my bed. There, I said it.

Now that we're acquainted, please take a moment to check out MY blog, Illogical Contraption, which one reviewer called "quite possibly the best thing on the internet, EVER" and another dude referred to as "the poor man's Metal Inquisition". Which it is.

Metal Archeology: Artifacts from a lifetime devoted to metal (Part 4)

Archeologists from UNC Chapel Hill uncover my oversized copy of Convicted. Thanks, dudes! I've been looking for that!

Yeah, I know it was my brother Lucho who started the Archeology posts (part1, part2, part3), but to be fair, most of the digs were done in OUR mom's basement, so in a way, they are my posts, too. Anyway, last time I was there I dug through old Metal Hammer magazines and Blue Grape backpatches to find a small box of tapes. Let me share some of my finds...



Ordered off some local rag in the late 80's in Toledo, Ohio, this was the very first demo tape we ever owned. Undertaker were a terrible thrashy band with horrible production, a terrible cover and a song called "Sesame Street Mosh". What a treasure!



I've talked about Impetigo a lot on past posts. They are still one of my top 10 favorite bands of all times. I was SO amped when I got this in the mail from Mark! He told me he took the tape to practice specially to get it signed for me. I'm not sure if that was true or not, but I was the KING of the metal scene that day and this tape was my crown. A really lame, lame crown.



This find goes back to the 80's. I hope you find this as funny as I do. Back in the day, in South America, it was hard to get original tapes, so dubbed tapes were the norm. This guy in my class, Eduardo, went to Miami for the summer and brought back a bunch of metal tapes. Of course, I dubbed them all, walked to a near by pharmacy and photocopied all the covers. One of the tapes he brought back the summer of 1988 was Maiden's "Seventh Son." Not sure why I felt the need to use color pencils and a black ball-point in a sad attempt at make the cover look "real", but I'm glad I did. I was 13, what an idiot!



There's plenty more junk where these came from, so stay tuned and watch out for the next "Metal Archeology: Artifacts from a lifetime devoted to metal" post!

5 Albums That Changed My (musical) Life

Computer-rendered depiction of the quiet moment when I decided to come up with this list.

My life in the world of metal has been a long one, at least it feels that way to me. Looking back on my years involved in metal, it's sometimes all a blur. I've attended lots of shows, concerts, and fests as an audience member. I booked bands, and helped my brother run his tape distro. Yes, there was a time when bands put out tapes. I saw Entombed at a strip club during their first US tour. I was part of the Wild Rags Records street team, and I was a pen pal of sorts with members from Hellwitch, Impetigo and other not-so-seminal bands. My brother and I did a radio show for many years, and played 7 minute Carcass songs so we could go to the bathroom which was roughly a mile away from the studio where we did the show from, and still get back in time to give out the call letters by the end of the hour. I played in bands, and got my double bass 36th notes to sound damn good and even. I've collected records, I've collected cassettes, and VHS tapes. I've driven long distances to see bands, and I've even waited to outside a tour bus to have an Obituary drumstick autographed. Okay, that last one still makes me cringe, but it was 1992 for god's sake! Anyway, because it's all a blur, I sometimes like to set some quiet time aside to think about it all. Just me, an Enya CD, a cup of tea, and nature. It's during these quiet moments (see image above) that I most effectively manage to reflect upon my life in the world of metal. Below is the product of my last quiet moment of reflection, a list of albums that changed my life. I've tried to be as truthful as possible in compiling this list, and as such the albums may not be as impressive or obscure as some I could have come up with. But this is the truth, here for all to read. These were albums that I encountered by chance at some point in my life. In one way or another, these recordings changed my view of music at that moment, and more often than not, sent me in a significantly different musical direction thereafter. School's in bitches. Let us begin.

1982

Kiss-Unmasked

I was a little kid when my brother and I received this album as a gift from our uncle. While many would argue that getting Unmasked as a gift is just as bad as getting smallpox infected blankets for your birthday, I have to tell you that I love this piece of garbage album to this day. In a way, I love almost anything that Kiss has done actually, best exemplified by Gene Hoglan's Balls and I singing "Hard Luck Woman" at a kareoke place just this weekend. But back to Unmasked. When I tell Kiss fans that this is my favorite Kiss album, they look at me exactly as you'd look at a retarded kid that just crapped his pants. A mix of disgust and sadness. What can I tell you, at such a young age, I had no idea that Kiss hadn't always been a disco-tinged pop disaster, but rather an awful talentless theater show. How was I to know? The album had enough songs with a harder edge to make it my favorite for many years, at least prior to my age jumping into the double digits. As a matter of fact, this was the only album that my brother and I listened to for most of our childhood. As a result of my youth, at one point I really did believe that Kiss may have actually been connected to satan, if only in a minor way. You see, my mom always told me to put my Kiss record away, (along with all my other toys) before going to bed. One day, I didn't listen to her and went to bed, leaving both the sleeve and the record sitting on the carpeted floor by my bed. In the middle of the night, I woke up to go to the bathroom, slipped on the record and hit the back of my head on the edge of my bed so hard that I nearly threw up from the pain. I remember getting a bump in the back of my head that was roughly the size of a hard boiled egg cut in half. After that day, I was always careful with the record, and kinda thought it really did have evil powers. As it turns out, the only evil power the record had, was making money for Gene and Paul for what basically amounted to third rate disco bass lines. I know, I was an idiot, but I was also like four. I loved the record, and while other kids in school were listening to silly kids music (perhaps one step up from "row, row, row your boat.."), I was listening to Kiss, and I felt like a bad-ass. This album basically set me up to continually keep looking for music that was harder, and more extreme than what the rest of the kids around me were listening to. Humble beginnings, I know, but in 1982, and this is all I had access to. About 8 years ago, my brother and I ended up at a taping of the David Letterman show. We sat right above Anton Figg, who was the session drummer for Unmasked. The whole time, I kept yelling at him to play "Torpedo Girl", which is my favorite song in the album. After the twentieth time, he kinda looked up, and shook his head. Yes, I had basically been told I was an asshole, but I had been told by the guy who laid down the groove on Torpedo Girl! So I was a happy man.




1988
Iron Maiden-Live After Death

Many years after Unmasked, my brother and I received dubbed copy of Live After Death from my sister's boyfriend. We were amazed by the whole tape. It was harder and faster than Kiss, and the cover (which we got a poster of) was way more evil! Eddie's shirt is all ripped, and the screw keeping his forehead shut was getting hit bit lighting! Holy shit! Sign me up! Soon after getting the tape, we watcged the home video version, and we were in love. I didn't speak any english then, but I could still be heard yelling out "scream for me long beach!" through the halls of my school. Can you believe that I still wonder why girls were repulsed by me? Maybe the bleached rat-tail, and the Brut Cologne didn't help, and I'm sure my wearing sweatpants constantly didn't make it any easier either. It's as though I was daring the oppostite sex to not throw up when looking at me. So, a couple of years after owning the tape, and playing it thousands of times, it became worn out. Another mishap with the TDK-60 dub of this album was that my sister's boyfriend had left the tabs in, so I mistakenly hit "record" twice while attempting to press "play" to listen to the tape. Because of this mishap, our beloved cassette had two blank spaces in crucial moments of songs. Actually, they weren't blank spaces, but spaces with ambient sound of my room back then, picked up by the small microphone in my Sony boombox. Having heard Maiden, the world of bands like Helloween, Metallica, Testament, and even Whiplash was open to my brother and me. I was like a fatty with an insasiable hunger for metal...and the pages of Metal Hammer magazine were my all-you-can-eat buffet. It was also around this time that we were introduced to some other very extreme bands, ones that bordered on grindcore, but they were small local bands that no one would know about...so I'll skip those. Moving on...






1989
Slayer-Reign In Blood, Venom-Black Metal

I count this one as one album, since it came to me as a single cassette. You see, one of our neighbors came to our house one day, asking if we'd buy one of his dubbed cassetes for five bucks or so. In retrospect, I think he wanted money to buy some wacky-tabbacky...but I'm not sure. He was older than my brother and me, and he was hella' metal. The tape he sold us was a 90 minute cassete with Reign In Blood on one side, and Black Metal on the other. While we liked Venom, it was Slayer that captured our imagination. Sadly, this was the first Slayer album I encountered. As I've stated before, South Of Heaven is my favorite...but life has a funny way of leading you down a path. Anyway, soon after hearing this tape, we got a dubbed copy of the Ultimate Revenge home video, and we were both hooked. Clearly, we didn't speak english then...otherwise we would have noticed just how insanely stupid Slayer comes off in that video. Luckily, we were clueless. Having heard Slayer, Metallica started to seem a little tame to us. We finally realized that Kiss was a disco band at one point. We were shocked. We still loved Maiden, but we knew that there were more extreme bands out there, and we had to find them. Destruction, Kreator, Cryptic Slaughter, Crumbsuckers and Bathory made sense to us after having owned this tape.



1989
Napalm Death-Peel Sessions

My friend's mom was going to England for work in 1989, and he asked my friend what he would like her to bring him back from England. Being a smart dude, he quickly called me and asked me for the names of the most extreme bands I could think of, so she could buy those tapes while in England. My brother and I compiled a list, but I don't think that Napalm Death was on it. We had heard of other early Earache bands through reviews in Metal Hammer, but I don't think we even knew about Napalm Death. I should mention that Metal Hammer back then was made up of endless articles about AC/DC, small features about Metallica, a cover story about Triumph or Uriah Heap, with small reviews of actual metal bands. To give you an idea of how behind the times we were in our beloved backwards country, the Metal Hammer issues we were buying at the supermarket for a good bit of money, were literally three years old! I'm not kidding! Imagine my shock when I found out that Cliff Burton had not only died, but they had already replaced him and were well on their way to sucking full-time! In any case, back to the story about my friend's mom.... she came back with the Peel Sessions tape from England. We heard it, and as you can expect, we were shocked. Now Slayer sounded like Bon Jovi and Def Lepard. It blew our mind, and I think it took some time for it all to sink in and make sense. Having heard this tape, the world of death metal, grindcore, punk, crossover and noise was open to us. Though some bands could be heavier, nothing seemed faster and more extreme than this recording for many years. I have to say, while many were bummed when Napalm Death released Harmony Corruption, I actually liked it...even if it sounded tame compared to Peel Sessions. It's still one of my favorite death metal albums of all time.






1991
Death-Human

Living in south-Florida during the formative years of American death metal was a great experience.Chuck Schuldiner lived in a storage space near our apartment, guys from Obituary were dating girls in my brother's high school, member of Cynic hadn't started to play in salsa bands in cruiseships...those were the days! It should come as no surprise then that I still feel that those early years of death metal were by far the greatest as far as musical output. Shortly after the Death album "Human" came out, I bought it and loved it instantly. Actually, I didn't buy it...I got this kid who I completely used for his money back then to buy it for me...but that's another story. Human was catchy and highly melodic, two qualities that were somewhat rare in other death metal bands back then. Yes, you could remember the general melodies to Deicide songs, but Death had taken it a step beyond. It reminded me of Iron Maiden, and that was a good thing. Perhaps that's why so many people grew to hate them. Another aspect of this album that blew me away was its complexity. In retrospect, the album is not THAT musically complex, but it opened my eyes to the possibilities. I know many people hate the fact that bands like Cynic or Atheist opened up Pandora's Box, and that inside that box was Fusion and Jazz...but I loved it. While Human was not as complex as some of Atheist's music or Cynic's, this album connected with me and showed me that complexity could be metal, prog could be metal...hell Jazz could be insanely enjoyable. Sadly, like many great moments in music, I believe that albums like Human, and most Swedish death metal are to blame for letting in a fair number of short haired beardos into metal. But what can you do? That's not Chuck's fault! Go blame the beardos! You gotta crack some eggs in order to make an omelet.




That's it. I guess since 1991 I've had no musical breakthrough moments in the realm of metal. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who knows or understands my taste in music. I've had plenty such moments outside of metal, but I guess in my eyes, little has been done that matters in any way since 1991 within metal. Yes, I've listened to some bands after then and liked them a good bit...but I have not heard anything after Human that sent me into a different branch of the metal tree, if you will. I'm sure some of you disagree, but this is my opinion. An opinion that sounds an awful lot like the old man who is still going on and on about how The Beatles were the last great band, or the Greatful Dead fan who refuses to acknowledge the mere existence any musical output after 1972. I guess I've joined their club...and to tell you the truth, that's just fine with me.

Metal Inquisition Video Vault: Obituary on public access television (Circa '91)

Here we see Trevor looking much like Rodin's The Thinker, wondering why on earth he looks so much like Skeletor, and whey he's wearing white socks with black shoes.

We are once again opening up our video vault, so that Metal Inquisition readers can enjoy the metal goodness that has been hiding in the mountains of VHS and Beta tapes that are sitting around in my basement. This time, I bring you Florida's Obituary on public access television. I got this video, along with some Deicide and Napalm Death footage on a trade with Pat from Hellwitch back in 1992. Watch and enjoy. Please note the following:

- Great set decor. Nothing says "metal" like wicker.

- Sweet Sadus hat/hair combo

- "Plus, you're thrashing so hard" (0:59)

- "Did you guys ever jump into the pit?" , as she says that she makes the face shown above. (1:05)

- Awkward moment with young kid who thinks "Man in the box" is a song by Red Hot Chili Peppers (3:22)

- Awesome burgundy sweatpants are both versatile and comfortable (5:17)

- Great discussion about the validity of recording at Morrisound, sadly there's no talk about why bass drums sound like typewriters when recorded there. (6:42)

Underrated Masters: Mortal Sin

In a post a few weeks back, I reported, in detail, about Tankard. The Germans are one of the most underrated bands in Metal. In the same vein, Mortal Sin never got the recognition they deserved. Most things from Australia are pretty shitty and gay, like kangaroos, koalas, INXS and Olivia Newton-John. But not these Aussies!

When we were a kids, my brother and I were limited musically to whatever records made it to South America's stores and whatever dubbed tapes we got from friends, who'd gotten them from their friends. Well, in a trip to the record store in the mall in '89 or so, we saw a Face of Despair record in the Rock section. At first I thought the band might be some shitty Christian rock, but when I turned the record around I realized these guys meant business. Metal business. White high-tops, ripped frosted denim jeans, sleeveless "Shut-up and Skate" T-shirt and Suicidal Tendencies-like bandanas? Damn, the temptation was too much. We bought the LP and played it as soon as we got home. We were not disappointed.

"Face of Despair" quickly became one of our favorite records. We never really got the cover, with the girl and the "SEX" neon sign and a syringe and the crucifix... I guess they were trying to make a deep point about girls and sex and health care in Australia. Whichever way, the music spoke for itself. The first song on side B, "Innocent Torture" opens with a rad sample of a judge sentencing someone to death. From there Mortal Sin rip a fucking awesome tune with awesome riffs that would make Tenacious D proud. The production on the record is not super clean and the guitar sound is a little whiney, but the that song is still one of my favorite thrash tracks of all time. The other tune in here that is bad-ass is "I Am Immortal". Here's a video from some TV show in the 1989. It might be in Australia, but I thought they only got electricity there in the late 90's...




So, here we were, in love with a band we knew nothing about and wanting more. We didn't even know where they were from. We'd have settled for any info at all, but what we had coming was more than we expected. Enter: the Peña Twins.

If it wasn't for Mortal Sin, the Peña Twins wouldn't be mentioned at all in our memoirs. The Twins used to ride bus #1 from school with us and got off on 140th Street, just below 7th Avenue. They were pretty annoying kids and were always getting in trouble, so my brother and I ignored them through the school year. That was only until one day, when one of them (the one with braces) asked me if I'd ever heard of Mortal Sin. "Fuck!", I thought, "how does this little shit know about OUR band?" Mortal Sin wasn't a band people were allowed to listen to without getting permission from us. After all, we'd discovered them. How did Peña Twin #1 know about them? How did he know anything about metal at all? Sure he wore high-tops and had a skater cut with a rat-tail, but he was far from being metal. They knew who Black Sabbath was and maybe even Metallica, but that was about it. My friends and I had a list of ALL metalheads in the school and the Peña Twins were NOT in it. I was shocked. Hiding my outrage, I told them I knew who they were. He then told me he had one of their records. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this POSER has a Mortal Sin record?" Well, he probably bought it by mistake in the same record store we bought ours, I thought. "I can't remember what it's called, but the cover has a demon eating buildings" - "You must be mistaken, dude. That's not a demon, it's a little girl. And she's not eating shit, she's scared as hell!" He told me I was crazy and he'd bring the record to school the next day.

Originally released in '86 with the cover on the left and re-issued in '87 with the cover on the right.

"Fuck my ass!" or something like that, is what I thought the next day when I saw one of the Peña Twins holding "Mayhemic Destruction." I don't even know if it was the same Twin, but at that point I was more concerned with being one-uped by certified posers than analyzing the differences between these 2 genetic mutant freaks. My brother and I looked at each other in horror. We were both thinking the same thing: "Don't look surprised, we can't let them think they know more than we do." But they did. They had a Mortal Sin record we didn't! It was too much to bare, we had to compromise our metal integrity to listen to this record. I broke down and asked him to borrow it. "We already have it on tape, at home, of course" I lied, "but the tape is really old and you can hardly hear it."
Wow! The sound was much rawer than I had expected. I realized while listening to it that it was their first record. It wasn't as Meliah Rage-ish as "Face...", it reminded me more of "Kill 'Em All" or "Ride The Lightning" Pretty goddam metal whatever it reminded me off. I made a tape of the record and returned it to the fucking Peña Twins. Fuck'em. Here's my favorite tune from that album, "Women In Leather".





It wasn't until 12 years later that I would finally own a copy of "Mayhemic (is that even a real word?) Destruction" I got a really nice Japanese pressing that I paid entirely too much money for. I also scored a 12" single called "Voyage Of The Disturbed" that the sold on tour in the US in '89.

My Mortal Sin vinyl collection today. The Peña Twins ain't got shit on me anymore!

So, I guess after "Face..." the Australians went the way of kangaroo shit. The have re-formed again and again, but it's not the same. One of the dudes put out a record in '91 under the name Mortal Sin and got sued quick-like. What a douche.

What a gay cover. No wonder he got sued.

A new record came out in '07, but the new line up is pretty pathetic and a few of them have advanced cases of Robb Flynn's Disease. It's very sad. See for yourself. The video starts off with no audio, but give it a second.

Anyway, here's to another underrated band that made the days of my youth worth living. Cheers, mates!

In My Record Shelves

Opening up is hard to do. This is especially true when it comes to a man's record collection. I share these records with you not to show off (after all my collection is no longer what it once was), but to tell you the stories that go along with these records. These are not my most prized vinyl possessions, but ones that I thought would be worth sharing with our fellow readers. Here we go...


Out of all the hard rock/almost-metal compilations that were put in South America during 1988 by CBS records, this one is one of my favorites. The title translates to "heavy metal", and the fine airbrush work on those letters lets you know this record is no joke. But what about the music you ask? Not only does this album feature blazing tracks by none of the leading bands of the time, it features some of the hottest homoerotic artwork known to man. Just look at those glistening abs, those leather pants and other assorted gear that make this fine leather daddy one of the finest welders around. Not content with a simple guitar strap, this guy uses a chain to keep his flying V (Michael Schenker signature model Aria Pro?) in check. How can he play while he's wearing a godamned welding mask? If you need to ask...you'll never understand. He shreds SO hard, that sparks come out! It's also worth mentioning that the diagonal text on the left edge of the cover says "fill your head with rock", as in rock music. This tagline was a bit of a mixed message when I first bought this record. Here I was, now wearing my welding helmet like the guy on the cover, but then I have to take it off to fill it up with rocks? What? Lastly, it's worth mentioning that 220 Volt's lackluster appearance on this compilation album still doesn't take away from their earlier work in South American compilation albums, namely their track "Heavy Christmas". Haven't heard it? Go listen to it now!



Oh man, I can remember it like it was yesterday...I was hanging out with Russell and the boys from Forbidden on the side of a highway somewhere in the midwest, trying to figure out what to do next. I'd been on the road with those guys for two months, and times were rough. There was little time for fun during that tour, since nearly every moment was spent dealing with double-talking club owners, angry record label reps, or the occasional overweight female fan that Paul took a liking to. Anyway, that hot summer night we all sat around and heard the bad news from Rick (tour manager/mechanic). The van had broken down again, and this time it was serious. Apparently the intake manifold had cracked, and with it had gone the water pump. The band was broke, and had no money for the repairs. So, the only way to continue was to lighten the load. They were going to share a van with a band from Texas (whose name I can't remember to save my life) to finish up the tour. Space was going to be very tight, so I was released of my duties as a roadie. I was let go unceremoniously, with only this signed 12" single (as a thank you from the band) and $20 towards a Greyhound ticket home.

Okay, that's all a big lie. I bought this signed 12" at a local record store for $1.25.








Remember Mythic, the all girl death metal band? I barely do. I pretty much only remember them because of this record. My brother once saw them at a Cleveland Metal Fest, where they played with a casket on stage. That's about all I remember. What's important is that they were some of the pioneers of what I call "Metal Mama Jeans", which are basically like Mom Jeans (from the SNL commercial) but for metal babes. If you went to death metal shows in 1992, you saw black denim clad ladies like this everywhere, rocking their tucked-in Kreator t shirts. Just look at how insanely high these girls were able to get those pants! They are like denim sorcerers! There's enough zipper in one pair of Metal Mama Jeans for twenty sleeping bags! Man, nothing turns a man on like a cooch-pouch on a metal babe.



Unlike the Forbidden story, this one is real and thus perhaps less exciting. But it's still pretty good. My brother and I went to see Danzig in 1992, and we waited for a few hours in the cold to have this record autographed. As Eerie Von and John Christ came out of the club from sound checking, we got them to sign the record. We waited a bit longer, and were suddenly told by security that we would have to go across the street and wait over there until Glen came out. The security strategy was that as soon as Glen came out of the club's back door, we'd be allowed to approach him for autographs. But only once he came out, would we be allowed to cross the street and go toward him. I'm not sure where this unbelievably stupid security approach came from, or why on earth we followed it. I'm embarrassed even typing it out. By the way, I hope you're not imagining a mob scene with buff dudes and hot babes like you saw in the Danzig home videos. This was more like 9 teenagers shivering in the cold, holding Sharpies. So what happened was that Glenn came out, and we all rushed toward him like fat housewives on one of those shows where you run through a supermarket putting crap in the cart in order to win. While I was still standing on the other side of the street, Glenn looked strong and menacing... though a bit small. I thought this was to be expected, since I was far away from him. I mean, you can see a 747 flying over you house, and it looks about as big as a matchbox right? But you know that in reality, the thing is huge. That was not the case with Glenn. As I got closer and closer, he actually got smaller. I finally figured out that this tiny little man was indeed shorter than I was. In the spirit of full disclosure I should tell you that I am short. I'm exactly 5' 7 1/4" (I went to the doctor recently and was measured). The day Glenn Danzig signed this record, I was not done growing yet and was maybe 5' 6", if that. I remember standing next to him as he signed the record, thinking to myself "Oh my god, I'm taller than Glenn Danzig." I have proof of this, since a picture of that moment exists. In that picture I'm wearing an awful Raiders beanie (my fashion sense at the time fell somewhere between the Cavalera brothers, and the movies Blood In Blood Out and American Me), and with that awful hat on my head I'm easily three inches taller than the tiny evil-dwarf that is Danzig. I felt so good that day, not only was I taller than someone on planet earth, but that someone was Danzig.
On a closing note I should mention that Chuck never signed the record. While other members came out of the club and later from the bus, Chuck was in the bus the whole time. He refused to come out, and kept peering through the tour bus windows from time to time. Thinking back on it, I see his point. Why on earth would he want to endure stupid teenagers like me asking him to sign a record? I completely understand that now..but back then I was angry as hell.

Gene Hoglan's Ballbag of Cassettes

A few weeks back fellow Metal Inquisition staffer SkullKrusher posted some gems from his vinyl collection. I, of course, also have a respectable collection of metal vinyl, but instead I thought I'd share with you something else very special--my metal cassette collection.

Yes, I know that vinyl is much cooler, but I'm a child of the 80s; the audio cassette provided the soundtrack to much of my life. I still remember buying my first cassette in 5th grade (Ugly Kid Joe's As Ugly As They Wanna Be EP) and making my dad drive me to the Wiz so I could buy Metallica's black album (not worth the gas it cost). I spent countless hours of my teen years making shitty mix tapes from CDs and stuff I taped off of WSOU (back when they still played real metal). And really, when it comes to reproducing the muddy, lifeless production of Scott Burns what better choice is there than a hissing, mangled cassette?

And now, without further ado, I present to you six gems from my metal cassette collection:



Still to this day, Demilich's Nespithe remains one of the most twisted and original death metal albums of all time. Featuring the sickest guttural vocals ever recorded and bizarre, nonsensical song titles like "The Sixteenth Six-Tooth Son of Fourteen Four-Regional Dimensions (Still Unnamed)" these guys put Finland on the map when everyone was busy jerking off to Swedish death metal. I bought this cassette from drummer extraordinaire Dave Witte a few year ago when he was selling off his cassette collection (What an idiot!).

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One of the few black metal bands that does not blow. These guys are like the Cynic of black metal. Not nearly as technical, but you can hear a lot of jazz and progressive influences. And instead of robot vocals you get weirdo goth vocals that sound like a cross between Leonard Cohen and Peter Murphy. A lot of the songs on this demo were re-recorded for their full length, which is awesome, but this remains my favorite stuff they've ever done because of the rawer production. I got this tape from Double Decker Records in Allentown, PA back when I was in college. They bought some dude's metal collection and it was the sickest I've ever seen. Just about every great metal record released in the 80s in either mint edition or still sealed as well as tons of early 90s black metal that must now be worth a small fortune (I still regret not having bought more, but I was a poor college student), and a bunch of tapes and t-shirts (I bought a size XL Dark Angel "LA Caffeine Machine" t-shit that was so big it came down to my knees).

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I have no idea why I bought this tape. I can get into De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas, but this fucking sucks. It's a live bootleg and it sounds like shit. I've only ever listened to it once and I couldn't even get through the first song. Is this at least worth anything?

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Here's a fun game to play with friends when you're doing laps around the Newark airport waiting for someone's flight to arrive: put the Grindcrusher comp in your tape deck and see if you can name all the bands without looking at the case. Sure some of them are easy, but I dare most of you retards to tell the difference between Intense Degree and Sore Throat. When I played this game with Lucho Metales he couldn't even guess Repulsion (POSER)!

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Gorguts's early material doesn't get nearly as much love as it deserves. As far as brutal mid-tempo 90s death metal goes, it doesn't get any better than this. Plus, it's one of the few albums Scott Burns ever produced that doesn't sound like complete shit. Blue Grape, they just don't make merch like you used to.

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When I'm cruising over the Pulaski Skyway in my Mercury Cougar there's nothing better than singing along to this, my favorite Iron Maiden album, blasting out of my tape deck. When I saw them last month and they played "Moonchild" and "The Clairvoyant" during the encore I was so excited that I was momentarily able to forgot about Janick Gers prancing around onstage like a girl twirling his guitar.